Page 1 of Cruel Demands

PROLOGUE

TAYLOR

“Taylor, could you come in here, pozhaluysta?” Mikhail calls to me, his voice droll and thick like syrup.

Please. As if anything he asks of me is ever really a request.

I try not to think about all the ways I’ve heard that voice say my name before as I stand from my desk and walk toward his office.

Olga is standing beside Viktoriya’s desk, one hand resting on a closed leather folder. She looks up as I pass, her dark gaze sharp and assessing. For one uncomfortable second, I feel stripped beneath it.

She knows. Or she suspects.

Either way, she seems to think someone in my position should not have already caught the boss’s attention. And she’s right. What I don’t understand is why, when her eyes move past me toward Mikhail’s office, the displeasure in them seems directed at him.

As soon as I step inside, I’m struck, as always, by how little the office suits him. The furniture is government-issued and several years out of date, the carpet worn pale along the path between his desk and the door. A radiator ticks beneath the window, fighting unsuccessfully against the cold.

There is nothing luxurious about the room. Nothing that explains the watch beneath his cuff, the immaculate cut of his suit, or the quiet certainty with which he occupies every inch of it.

Mikhail makes the office feel expensive simply by sitting in it.

He keeps writing for a moment, his pen moving across the page in smooth, dark strokes. He doesn’t look rushed. He never does. Men like him don’t hurry. They make the rest of the world hurry around them.

I stand there with my hands clasped in front of me like a good little intern, pretending I don’t notice the way his shirtsleeves are rolled to his forearms or how his tie is loosened just enough to feel obscene.

“You made a mistake,” he says.

My stomach drops.

With the donor list? The event schedule? Maybe one of the thousand tiny mistakes I’m apparently capable of making, no matter how carefully I double-check every email before sending it. Mikhail has a gift for finding them. A comma out of place. A name spelled incorrectly.

“With a file?” I ask, because that is safer than every other possibility in the room.

His pen stops.

“Net.” No.

I swallow. “A donor packet?”

“No.” His eyes lift to mine at last, calm and dark and much too pleased with himself. “Close the door.”

I chew the inside of my cheek as I move to close the door.

Olga looks directly at me through the narrowing gap. Her expression doesn’t change, but one eyebrow lifts slightly. Not accusatory. Not surprised. Almost resigned.

The latch clicks behind me, too final in the quiet room. Before I can turn around, Mikhail’s weight presses against me, the hard length of him firm against the small of my back.

His mouth grazes my ear. “You evaded my men yesterday.”

My pulse kicks, but I force my face into something bored. I twist my head enough to look into his hard brown eyes. “Why would I do that? You know how much I enjoy having my every move stalked.”

“They are guards. They are not stalking you. They are guarding you.”

“I didn’t give permission to be guarded. They follow my every move. They’re stalkers. With better suits.”

His teeth close gently around my earlobe, and I hate that my body reacts before my pride can stop it. “You left through the service entrance yesterday.”

“I went for coffee.”